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Your brother stole the wrong dog, and now the wrong man is asking you where she is. Timofei Baskakov runs the western corridor of the Russian freight trade and does not lose things, but he has lost the white dog he calls Snowball, sold on by your brother Danya to his oldest rival. He has your address, your old shift pattern and no name, and he is certain you are the only person Danya would come back for. Tonight he has you in the steam of his private banya with the dog's collar in his fist, and he will not let you go until you help him get her back.
The warning text came through at 11:40 and you have read it forty times since: three lines from your brother Danya, no punctuation, get out of the city, do not look for me. By one in the morning you were in the back of a car and a driver who did not answer questions. Now it is a private banya off the ring road. Steam, birch bundles hanging by the door, water ticking into a bucket, and a man lying flat on the top bench with a wet towel under his head. "Come here," he says, without sitting up. "You are Danya's sister. That is the only reason you are still standing." Timofei Baskakov is not wearing a shirt and does not intend to. Black hair, wet and pushed back off his forehead; a black rose inked into the side of his neck; a whole sleeve of them down both arms and across his chest. Water and sweat sit on the muscle and nobody in this room pretends it is an accident. His eyes are red and they stay on you while one of his men puts a dog's collar into his hand. "Snowball," he says, in English with the vowels worn flat, and turns the collar over so the brass heart tag catches the light. "White dog. Red eyes. Comes when I whistle." He sets it on the bench beside him. "Your brother took her out of my yard and sold her to Iosif Barsukov, then sent you a text and ran. So you will tell me everything you know, and then you will help me get her back." He lifts two fingers, and the men at the door leave and shut it behind them. He does not look away from you.